Bordering Plants
Bordering Plants is an exhibition curated by Carmen Lael Hines, Adam Hudec and Roberto Majano which considers, through diverse research-oriented works, plants as objects, typologies and taxonomies.
The practice of botany can be broadly described as the cultivation of plants in indoor spaces, gardens and greenhouses. Though indoor plants and plant cultivation, more generally, are often associated with connectedness, peace, and tranquillity, recent criticism produced by scholars such as Ros Gray and Shela Sheikh (Goldsmiths University, London) show that the practice of botany in many countries in Europe has a much darker history, emerging as a consequence of the exploratory voyages that European colonial powers sent around the world.
The exhibition Bordering Plants emerges from this critical, historical lens. Within the interconnected fields of contemporary art, critical theory, architecture/design practice, plants, and their theoretical implications are becoming an increasingly addressed phenomena and typology. We find plants, and images of them, in our books, exhibitions, cafes, and Instagram Feeds. We find plants on our sidewalks, urban gardens and bed side tables. We also find plants on demarcation zones industrial greenhouses, and surplus compost bins.
The exhibition considers, through critical transdisciplinary works how plants interrogate, affirm or call to question notions of the border. The curators interpretation of borders is not that of static entities - but epistemological positions. Sandro Mezzadra and Brett Neilson propose that borders not be approached as a fact, but as a "method" for thinking about ‘cast(ed)’ and ‘recasted relations, (…) of tension and conflict, partition and connection, traversing and barricading, life and death.’
With contributions by: laschulas (Angélica Castelló, Natalia Domínguez Rangel, Lorena Moreno Vera, Lucía Simón Medina), Basurama (Mónica Gutiérrez Herrero), Beatriz Santiago Muñoz, Gianna Virginia Prein, Alán Carrasco, Agustín Ortiz Herrera, Mary Maggic, Landon Newton, Ava Binta Giallo, Dusts Insitute (Adam Hudec, Katja Sterflinger, Michelle Howard, Laura Rabbachin), Studio Wild (Tymon Hogenelst, Jesse van der Ploeg).
With public programmes from Ayesha Hameed, Dusts Institute, Institute for Postnatural Studies, Resolve Collective
Curators: Carmen Lael Hines, Adam Hudec, Roberto Majano
Exhibition Design: Bilal Alame, Joanna Zabielska